As the US average IQ drops dangerously towards Central American levels, we can at least take comfort (foods) in the fact that the now much duller Amerikans are the largest set ever.

The nation’s obesity rate has reached the highest-ever level this year, according to the United Health Foundation’s 2018 . Obesity is a leading contributor to cardiovascular disease, cancer and other conditions. Additionally, an increase in drug deaths, suicides and cardiovascular disease deaths is contributing to an increase in premature death.

Better ban guns and cigars…

The obesity rate exceeded 30 percent of the adult population for the first time in America’s Health Rankings history, up 5 percent in the past year (from 29.9 percent to 31.3 percent). Premature deaths increased 3 percent (from 7,214 to 7,432 years lost before age 75 per 100,000 people).

Livin’ large. Adding in the merely overweight civies, we’re at something like 75% of all persons within the nonborders of the former nation. The trend GROWS (pun). Soon, maybe within a decade or so, the percent of tubbies will equal the average IQ.

USA! USA! USA!

Go supersize something.

PS: Please read all about that amazing money-waster of a program they’re pushing! Sure to be as effective as that last election Y’all enjoyed.

Scoring north of 140, on several “real” tests, officially rates one as either “very superior” or “genius/near genius.” And “genius” was historically a marker of advanced and unique individual achievement.

IQ and general knowledge (or memory) are related but different. IQ is like an engine and knowledge is like a transmission. They work well together but they are not exactly the same.

15 “tricky” questions suggest a measure of pedantry rather than raw processing power. Most internet IQ tests are really designed to soothe egos. For a real assessment, take the Stanford-Binet or the Wechsler tests, as administered by a professional.

The one Lew touts seems skewed a little to the low side. I took it and only scored a 274.

More than 1.4 billion adults are putting themselves at heightened risk of deadly diseases by not getting enough exercise, doctors are warning, with global activity levels virtually unchanged in nearly two decades.

With richer nations enjoying an increasingly comfortable, sedentary lifestyle, a study by the World Health Organization said a third of women and a quarter of men worldwide are in the firing line for killer conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer unless they up their physical activity.

Leading doctors said the number of people with a heart “older” than their actual age was “really alarming” and should spur people to quit smoking, eat better and exercise more. The revelation reflects in part Britain’s high levels of obesity and physical inactivity and previously high smoking rate.

Almost four-fifths (78%) of more than 1.9 million people in England who have taken Public Health England’s new online “heart age test” were found to have a heart that was older than their chronological age.

A third (34%) of those who answered the 16-question survey turned out to have a heart age that was at least five years above their actual age, while for one in seven (14%), it was at least 10 years higher.

Normally I don’t put too much stock in socialist studies and findings. These, however, fit with the trends. Note: I took the survey and found it a little off – though my heart age, by their standards, coincides with my actual age. Good enough.

Also, we know that physical condition and mental condition are somewhat related. So, it’s interesting the way the following story was contexted: Cognitive Power Peaks in Autumn.

Human cognitive powers have a seasonal rhythm, and for those living in temperate regions in the northern hemisphere they are strongest in late summer and early autumn. The effect is large enough to tip some older people over the diagnostic threshold for dementia if their cognitive tests are carried out in winter or spring.

Andrew Lim, a neurologist at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre at the University of Toronto, and his colleagues analysed data from 3500 participants aged 60 or over. All of them had undergone tests …

I’ve known this, about myself, for about two decades. Mentally, I get more done in the mid to late fall. This, in miniature, mirrors the boost to IQ usually experienced in the mid 20’s (maybe +5%). Some facets of mental prowess may increase around age 60, just in time for the afore-noted conditions to set in.

It’s interesting, given the demographic changes in aging populations, that they framed the study in terms of dementia rather than peak power for the younger generations. Either way, in a week or two you should feel a little smarter. Use it to arrest the disease risk. That will stave off many conditions – possibly to include dementia. This is a self-feeding loop. Work it, folks.

I’m not even sure why I always call them “fish wrappers.” More people probably line bird cages than encase carp with the local paper. Even more likely use ’em to start fires and keep weeds out of the garden. A thousand uses. But the primary purpose continues its long, slow slide.

The Pew Research Center found total US daily newspaper circulation, print and digital combined, was 31 million for weekday and 34 million for Sunday in 2017, down 11 and 10 percent, respectively, from the previous year.

But the researchers excluded digital circulation figures from two major newspapers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, whose subscriber data is not audited.

The New York Times reported a 42 percent gain in digital circulation and The Wall Street Journal a 26 percent rise.

If the independently produced figures were included in both 2016 and 2017, weekday digital circulation would have risen by 10 percent, according to Pew.

But even if it included the digital gains for the two big dailies, overall combined weekday circulation for US newspapers would still be down by four percent in 2017, the report said.

31 or 34 million means that only 10% of the US population gets news from newspapers. This is not especially reassuring news to a guy trying to float a new syndicated column. But it’s not the end of the world. Changes like this have been a constant throughout history.

As I’ve said before, I think the future of print is, largely: 1) the big three (WSJ, NYT, and USAT), and: 2) smaller locals and niche pubs. There’s probably some digital middle ground for those in between – probably with LOTS of ads all over the screen…

Back to the numbers, by pseudo-scientific methods, let’s try to get down to 31 or 34 million, shall we? 325,000,000-ish people: 31 + 34 ÷ 2 x 1,000,000. Thanks to falling IQs and pitiful “schools,” half are functionally illiterate, with no need for printed words of any kind. Down to 162,500,000. Of these, let’s assume that yet half again are even moderately interested in what’s going on around them (the rest being absorbed, fully, into the hedonism and triviality of the day). That’s 81,250,000. Getting there. Of the potentially literate, interested, and aware, half again might be truth-seekers. 40,625,000. Almost on target. 10% of that number may be turned off by bias, poor reporting, disinterest in the locale, price per copy, etc. That leaves 36,562,500. Yeah. Applying the old marketing assumption of 3% – here, in reverse – leaves 35,465,625. Aaaand that’s close enough. You’re welcome.

If I could offer any advice (and I will) for a local or regional publication looking to buck the trend, then:

1) Embrace the digital but keep it a true copy of the printed product and NOT some jumping, shifting, unsearchable pile of bullsh!t punctuated heavily by ads for crap no one wants. This can be done technologically and it can be done within the parameters of “normal” subscription costs.

2) For the printed word – print a real, FULL-SIZED paper! When did the news shrink down to Bazooka wrapper stature? And why?

3) Focus on reporting the local interests and the national/international headlines of note, with proper separation.

4) Restore the Funnies. Give them a daily section, maybe conjoined with the political news.

5) Have a business section worth reading. Remember when the city paper ran the NYSE indexes for the previous day in full? For a digital, this is as easy as an associated link to CBNC or Bloomberg.

6) Carry Perrin’s national affairs column, as currently seen at TPC (new one shortly, I’m told). At full price, of course. Soon I’ll announce whether it’s available from Creators, King, McMeel, or another service.

These suggestions, the last one aside, are not sure-fire by any means.

Others will still get “news” from some source. There’s always: the idiot box, Farcebook approved links, Snap Chirp or whatever the hell it’s called, those ever-so-informative cat videos, and rappers advising on the best auto injury attorneys…

Over the weekend I started a draft on a similar subject, something I noticed. Here and now, I finish it with a few changes. Those were brought about by several stories which surfaced yesterday, which largely validated what I was suspecting all along.

Young people’s IQ scores have started to deteriorate after climbing steadily since Wold War Two, a new study has found.

The fall, which equates to about seven points per generation, is believed to have begun with those born in 1975, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon.

“Wold” War Two is likely a plain, old error and not an example of the point…

It’s true. But it’s not technology causing the trend. It’s not the fish or lack thereof. And it is not some nebulous social “force.” There are three causes:

1) Smarter people are having fewer children, passing on fewer genes. This has particularly dire consequences for the West. This works in conjunction with the other two.

2) Lower-IQ peoples are increasing in number, passing on their genes.

3) Modern Western immigration is geared toward the importation of non-Western peoples from countries with populations known to correspond with number two, immediately above.

What prompted my drafting earlier is immaterial. Last fall I reported on the various national IQs and the world average (86). Then, I wrote:

“I’m a little surprised the USA came in as high as it did. I would not be surprised if that number (and the global average) slips a little with each coming decade and/or generation. …”

Back then I had it in my head that the US was somewhere in the mid-90’s, I’d have settled for 95 (and this wasn’t via random guessing). 98 is just too high. More likely, it’s around 94.5. It’s not that big of a difference but, as its a point on a downward trend, it’s especially troublesome.

Last year I quipped: “98 will have trouble returning to the moon. 86 will not go the first time. 72 might have trouble finding the thing with a telescope.” This principle applies to all areas of society. Space travel is one thing. Running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, gasoline refinement, and relative judicial stability are others.

It’s become a vicious cycle – and yes, 1975 would be about the time it should have started manifesting itself. A crazed and deteriorating culture drives brighter people to work longer and harder while embracing the selfish and the trivial and delaying or foregoing starting families. They pay taxes to support the others, who keep having children. This is, obviously, not sustainable. Those on the right tail of the curve are increasingly squeezed by those in the shifting middle.

And, societally, it’s the middle, the average that really counts. If you’re reading this and understanding it, you’re above average. Surely you have noticed the decline of late during your interactions with the masses. It’s real. And it’s a real problem.

Others have noticed as well. Vox Day on the subject yesterday:

Vox Day/Youtube.

By the way – related good news here: Youtube assigns “related” channels to a particular creator. How? I’m not exactly sure. Regardless, I now have three related channels:

Vox appeared last night. It’s an honor to be algorithmically included in his and Stefan’s company. Banshee Moon was a prepper-esque channel. Now it’s more a bikini lifestyle channel – which I am also proud to associate with…

Note: the decline in the schools does not really factor into the general lowering. It fits with the general decline, however. Children with less base intelligence have less need for real education.

A study published in 2010 at Cambridge University Press referred to a “critical period” during childhood as being the easiest time to learn languages. The study also shows that the language-learning process is very different for children and adults. College-age is in between these two periods and trying to learn a language can be a challenge for some students.

Area IV of The University of Georgia’s core curriculum is “World Languages and Cultures, Humanities and the Arts,” and UGA offers 34 foreign languages and American Sign Language which gives students a variety of options from which to choose to fulfill the requirement. While learning another language is an incredibly useful skill to develop in college, it is not always done easily.

Often, students have to take placement tests before taking language classes at UGA, and this placement charts the course for the rest of the language-learning to come. However, many students who have not taken a language since high school may have forgotten their prior knowledge from not speaking every day, and this can hinder them in classes where students have to immediately jump back in to an unfamiliar language.

Boy howdy! Was I ever aware of this stuff back in the day – so much so that I carefully chose a major devoid of any foreign language requirements.

Anika is on to something and then something more maybe. In grade school, I experimented with both Spanish and French. With both, I exhibited less than stellar performance.

The “why” I didn’t know or understand. Until later. Much later. It turns out that I have an auditory processing deficit. That’s a block in the brain wiring that inhibits hearing, and thus, understanding language. The hearing and understanding is kind of important when it comes to picking up a verbal language.

Here, I’ll note I do considerably better with written languages. Readers, here, may recall occasionally seeing French, German, Latin, and Catalan here and there. It’s considerably better than the spoken word but still not that good. Here, I rely heavily on electronic translation services and I still question and double, triple check those. Saps elque vull dir?

The English I couldn’t help but pick up, living in former America. The mind is capable of much, including compromise with blockages, when pushed.

The processing issue was explained to me as part of the debriefing on my results from the Highlands Ability Battery. A friend, a practicing psychologist, was working with the test, norming it, so to speak, and offered me a free assessment. I’m very glad I took it.

Says Highlands:

The Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) is a human assessment tool that objectively measures your natural abilities by asking you to perform specific tasks or exercises. As part of the Highlands Whole Person Model, the HAB is the foundation and starting point to identify the career best suited for you.

The HAB was founded on the work of research scientist Johnson O’Connor, who devoted his life to the study of human engineering. Almost a century of research that began with Johnson O’Connor and continues through the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation has established that every individual is born with a pattern of abilities unique to him or her.

What Makes the HAB Assessment Unique?

The HAB is unique in that it measures your abilities based on performance rather than perception. Exercises such as recreating designs from memory, manipulating blocks in space, and putting images in logical sequence are some of the virtual tasks you are asked to perform within a set amount of time. Results based on timed performance are far more reliable than results based on self-perception or personal opinion. See the research, HAB Technology and Research.

Another friend, another professional author, disclosed a similar difficulty with language during an exchange over one of his articles – on translations of all things. Part of my supportive response (“curated”):

I too formally studied several languages outside of English, which I’ve nearly mastered… Anyway, no such luck with Spanish, French, German, etc. I found out several years ago that I have a mental auditory “block,” a resistance in the brain to “foreign” language processing. This, I’m told is relatively common, even, counterintuitively, among those of higher IQ and with wider vocabulary. (Sounds like you).

…

Highlands isn’t a raw horsepower test like Stanford Binet or Wechsler. If anything, it’s closer to a career/happiness predictor. Via somewhat unusual (seemingly, to me) methodology if measures the mind’s natural processing ability over a pretty wide range of application categories: vocabulary, spacial recognition, etc. If you’re older and think you know your own brain, the measurement and outcome may or may not make sense. That’s where the specialist comes in. With slight explanation, it all comes together.

The official explanation revealed a paradox: I have (had, Ha!) a higher than average IQ, higher verbal abilities, and a larger than usual vocabulary; yet I don’t “get” languages. Odd, yes, but more common than one might suppose. The processing block is a kind of tone deafness, for lack of a better phrase. It also reflects on my relative musical inability and concomitant paradox: I like music but don’t understand it and can’t formally track, read, or replicate it. If that makes sense. Anika’s article suggests it should to some.

The cure, I’m told, is available and pretty easy, a form of mental retraining. I actually declined such in keeping with my hardheadedness and burgeoning curmudgeonly disposition.

However, as I told my shrink friend, if the test and corrections were available 30 years ago – and they were not, sadly – things might have been different. I probably would have used the training to affect performance, to my advantage. Now, the issue isn’t so pressing.

If you or someone you know suffer a similar malady, then take heart. And take the test. On the open market, I understand the HAB is a little pricey but it would seem worth it to me. This seems especially true for a younger person or student.

One will also discover or have reconfirmed many other aspects of one’s own brain. Some instantly make sense, some only so with formal explanation. It’s all fascinating.

It’s not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math.

The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. It’s grossly dishonest for the education establishment and politicians to boast about unprecedented graduation rates when the high school diplomas, for the most part, do not represent academic achievement. At best, they certify attendance.

Summarized in a sentence: Two-thirds of American high school graduates are functionally illiterate. This should shock and dismay more than just the writing set.

The people almost seem okay with this. It’s like another great George Carlin skit:

Carlin/YouTube.

America’s national average IQ is falling decade by decade. This even as the children suffer more and more “education.” Some, like Georgia’s potential next Governor, Stacey Abrams (a great fiction writer, BTW), want universal, “free” college for everyone. What’s the point. Why go to college or even to high school if the result is a majority that can’t read or do basic math?

Various peoples of the older world had less formal education but were on average smarter than modern Americans. Such was the case in Victorian England. The verbosity and concomitant popularity of Varney the Vampire bears this out: what would be a “difficult” read by today’s low standards was immensely popular with the street urchin, drop-out boys and young men on the streets of 19th century London. Why? How?

It’s not definitively provable but it is suspected that the average IQ in Plato’s Athens was around 125 (SB or Wechsler) – 2 standard deviations above America’s average today (maybe three above tomorrow…). That was the average, with half being even higher. How many standardized tests were those kids back then subjected to? None, likely.

And as our system continues to fail and to fail more spectacularly, the only answer from the establishment is more and more of the same.

We’ll get more of the same on all fronts. More fraud. More failure. Look for it in next year’s report card.

It’s funny almost. There are so many ways to look at the following story from MIT Tech Review. The average IQ of a group or society is kind of important. It kind of bears on how well, how advanced than group or society does or becomes. The “G” factor and all else is as natural, atavistic, and genetic as any physical marker. People have known (or suspected) this forever. Now it’s hard science:

A year ago, no gene had ever been tied to performance on an IQ test. Since then, more than 500 have, thanks to gene studies involving more than 200,000 test takers. Results from an experiment correlating one million people’s DNA with their academic success are due at any time.

The discoveries mean we can now read the DNA of a young child and get a notion of how intelligent he or she will be, says Plomin, an American based at King’s College London, where he leads a long-term study of 13,000 pairs of British twins.

Plomin outlined the DNA IQ test scenario in January in a paper titled “The New Genetics of Intelligence,” making a case that parents will use direct-to-consumer tests to predict kids’ mental abilities and make schooling choices, a concept he calls precision education.

As of now, the predictions are not highly accurate. The DNA variations that have been linked to test scores explain less than 10 percent of the intelligence differences between the people of European ancestry who’ve been studied.

Okay, it’s a hardening science. DNA is still relatively new as a measurement subject, a novelty we’re still grappling with. The DNA-IQ link is brand, spanking new, subject to bugs. But those will be worked out – for better or for worse.

Current inaccuracy aside, some have legitimate concerns about the new testing:

Several educators contacted by MIT Technology Review reacted with alarm to the new developments, saying DNA tests should not be used to evaluate children’s academic prospects.

“The idea is we’ll have this information everywhere you go, like an RFID tag. Everyone will know who you are, what you are about. To me that is really scary,” says Catherine Bliss, a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of a book questioning the use of genetics in social science.

“A world where people are slotted according to their inborn ability—well, that is Gattaca,” says Bliss. “That is eugenics.”

Several of my buzz words were hit upon right there.

The above-cited funniness comes from the cultural ramifications. Most people, centered up in that great parabolic shape, just don’t care about this stuff. Smarter people on the right … uh … maybe aren’t that smart. And they may suffer from spinal deformities. It’s some on the left who give us the delightful humor.

Some – not all – on the left claim to love science, logic, and reason. That is, they love it until the science interrupts the narrative. We are not, it seems, all the same. One can almost see this just by looking. The lust for scientific truth ends when it suggests as much as the eyes sometimes do. DNA says a lot. Some don’t want it heard. It’s like they don’t appreciate free speech. Turns out they don’t.

You surely recall The Bell Curve by Charles Murray. Murray was ahead of his time, a generation earlier than the new tests. His work examined the means and ends of IQ differences. Some rejected his findings and opinions. Murray tries to speak to college audiences only to be shouted down and run off by militant leftists. What, exactly, happened to the Spirit of Berkeley?

I happen to share the deep, genuine concerns about eugenics. I have no idea whether Catherine Bliss fits the bill but many on the left, while decrying potential eugenics in some areas of social order, happily support actual eugenics in other areas. Margaret Sanger’s ideas and procedures came from somewhere.

Anyway, for now this science is developing. I would not recommend running to any new site for testing, for you or your children. I smell snake oil from these start-ups. Too soon. But it will evolve. If you’re curious, then make sure to cross-reference the DNA results with a reliable, full battery from an established source (Stanford Binet or Wechsler).

Even the older, normed assessments are not fool-proof. Remember that, whatever score one gets, it is a general indicator. It measures raw ability and potential. It’s a good overall estimate but: *Actual performance may vary.* Exceptions may be found anywhere in the curve. Oddities manifest oddly at both ends.

Whether DNA or test-based, the exceptions, oddities, and generality should dictate a little caution. Persons, high, low, and average, should be left free to attempt fulfillment of and to the best of their abilities. The potential problem, within and without eugenic concern, is the potential mandating of class or tenure based upon initial scoring. That kind of central planning is one of the unproductive hallmarks of some on the left. Funny?

**This ramble has been brought to you by the letters, D, N, and A, and by the number 4.

Number One? Watching television.

Researchers have discovered that when it comes to intelligence, you are what you watch.

While it is fair to say that certain shows are informative, there are plenty of trashy shows that do not offer any educational value. However, in addition to lacking substance, stupid television shows have also been proven to actually make people dumber.

Markus Appel, an Austrian psychologist and professor, tested a group of college students on various subjects. Before administering the test, half the students were given a story about a silly man making all sorts of bad decisions. After reading about the not-so-smart shenanigans of the character, those students performed worse on the tests than the students who had not read the story.

Appel blames the results on “media priming.” Media priming refers to the residual, often unintended, effects of being exposed to media. This can result in changes in behavior, opinions, or intelligence.

This means that watching a reality show with a dumb person on it might seem funny, but their stupidity is contagious.

I’m a little surprised the USA came in as high as it did. I would not be surprised if that number (and the global average) slips a little with each coming decade and/or generation. Are these scores, like age, just numbers?

A few thoughts:

This may explain the popularity of television.

98 will have trouble returning to the moon. 86 will not go the first time. 72 might have trouble finding the thing with a telescope.

Last week, in my rant against robots, I, with qualification, accepted CNBC’s average “normal” score of 100. That was just wrong; 100 was the normed average from about a century ago for white Northern European populations. Those populations seem to be holding the average but the world at large is almost a whole standard deviation off (under).

To those who cry “racist,” “white privilege,” “Eurocentric,” “cultural insensitivity,” or such rubbish, just reply: “China.”

The study author(s) should probably forget even trying to discuss any of this at an American university.

If US trends continue, we might want to forget the idea of the American university.

Becker/Lynn/Unz.

Was Idiocracy really just a comedy or could it have been a documentary?